1st November 2011

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Things I learned while breaking my car

My attempts to replace the factory radio in my beloved Subaru Forester have failed, miserably. The beautiful new stereo I purchased lies dead on my dash, no matter how hard I hope when I turn the ignition.

Despite the NPR withdrawal I’m going through, I think I’m okay with the situation, because in the process of destroying my car, I’ve learned a few things:

• How to disconnect/reconnect a car battery
• How to solder two wires together
• How to put my car into neutral, without putting in a key
• How to remove (and reattach) the vent control connectors on my car
• How to remove and inspect a fuse

More than this, I’ve gained enough of an understanding for how my car works, that my Forester is no longer an intimidating black box. When I was 16 and inherited my first car, I vividly remember my dad’s instructions: “Take it to the dealership when you’re supposed to. Don’t try to fix it yourself; you’ll just end up breaking it.”

As it turns out, my dad was right, I “shot my eye out”, if you will. But this weekend I’m going to break out the soldering iron again and get my stereo working. And the next time my Forester breaks and I fix it myself, I think I’ll give him a call. Maybe he needs someone to fix his car.

Tagged: content

10th October 2011

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Thoughts on Spotify

After holding out for an Internet-eternity, Rob and Tyler have convinced me to give Spotify a try.

I’d used a free account occasionally over the past few weeks, but I signed up for Spotify Premium ($10/mo) last night and decided to go 100% Spotify (no iTunes/Pandora) for at least the first month of my subscription.

Things I like

• I made a “stuff to listen to” playlist of all of the bands people have recommended in the past few weeks (and I never got around to listening to) and it was super fast and easy. The catalog had everything I needed, and playlist creation was a snap. The friction that keeps me from trying new music is gone entirely.

• Being able to send songs to people / having an inbox of songs from others. If network effects get going this (and collaborative playlists) could be what make me stay on Spotify despite the complaints below.

Things I loathe

• Syncing music to the iPhone (for offline/bandwidthless play) can only be done from a desktop/laptop - it can’t happen over the Internet. This seems like a silly place for Spotify to cut corners on bandwidth costs (once I sync a song to my phone, I won’t have to stream it), and is a giant pain in the ass - my laptop is asleep 90% of the time. EDIT: The wifi network restriction only applies to local sync - you can cache files using any old wifi connection.
• The iPhone app is rough around the edges. It’s not hooked into the iOS music API properly (i.e. artist name/title of song don’t show on the Lock screen). It’s forgotten where I am in a playlist on multiple occasions. It wants to gobble up a ton of space (6 GB for ~300 songs?) and doesn’t have decent space management options. EDIT: The lock screen issue seems to be a restriction of Apple’s API’s - not a Spotify problem (Pandora has the same issue).
• Licensing issues for tracks are handled poorly (error message that essentially suggests pirating the song and transferring it locally). This is especially embarrassing for the 30+ unavailable tracks on the “Spotify Top 100”.
• The catalog is a mess for something licensed from labels - slightly more organized that a BitTorrent tracker, but significantly less organized than iTunes/Amazon (tons of duplicate albums, “local” music confusing things, shoving multiple artists with the same name into the same artist page).

Things I’m not sure about

• I’ve decided to throw privacy to the wind and embrace the Facebook integration. The sharing has been mostly cool (a FB friend writing on my wall re: the song I was listening to), and a little scary (will I listen to Britney in “public” mode once and suffer massive loss of man points?).
• The social playlist sharing is even more promising, but not there yet. I have a gajillion Facebook friends, but only ~30 have musical taste I’d like to mooch off of. Spotify’s “shove your entire friend list on the app” approach results in a useless jumble for me. Additionally, there’s no easy way (that I could find) to find playlists created by tastemakers. I stumbled onto Bob Boylan’s profile (of NPR fame) - but only because I had a friend who subscribed to one of his playlists. I would kill for the ability to subscribe to a Pitchfork “Best New Music” playlist and have it sync automatically to my phone.
• UI is frustratingly un-mac-like (i.e. window close buttons on the right, instead of the left of the title bar), but it’s not terrible.
• Am I supporting the bands I like with my $10/mo to Spotify (vs. buying 1-2 albums for ~$10/month beforehand)?

Tagged: contenttech

8th March 2010

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Things to do in London

Third in a series of non-comprehensive, incredibly subjective trip reports masquerading as “travel guides.”

Recommended Sights

• Tate Modern: Awesome modern art museum in a cool building. Walk across the “Millennium Bridge” from central London (across the Thames) to get there!
• British Museum: Fantastic history museum with crazy cool artifacts. Be sure to see parts of the Parthenon, the Rosetta Stone, and the Clock + Enlightenment Rooms.
• Platform 9 and 3/4: I don’t know if you’re as big of a Harry Potter fanatic as I am, but it’s a cool photo opportunity! It’s at the King’s Cross tube station.
• Oxford: I went for a day (like 9 - 6) and had a really good time checking out the different colleges, drinking at famous old pubs, and having high tea at a small hotel near the university.
• Spitalfield’s Market: Open air market with clothes, posters, random hipster stuff, good food.

Bars I recommend

• Barts: A super cool speakeasy, located in Chelsea in this random hotel called Chelsea Cloisters. You have to make a reservation, go through a “secret entrance,” and then you’re in this tiny bar with classic cocktails (added bonus - my friends have seen Hugh Grant here!).
• Princess Louise + White Hart: Both are great places to drink near the British Museum (Holborn tube stop). Princess Louise is a classic pub, classy wood decor + atmosphere. The White Hart is also old/historic but more of a bar with good music + a bit of a dance floor.

Food

• Obika: Amazing mozzarella!
• High tea: Find a classy place to get high tea (tea + finger sandwhiches + scones). We had it in Oxford, so I can’t recommend places in London, but I thought it was really hilarious + delicious.
• Indian Restaurants on “Brick Lane” (“Curry Row”): This street has like 5 billion Indian restaurants, and there are guys who stand by the doors and try to get you to come in. You can ask them for discounts if you want - we ended up getting a free round of drinks and 20% off of our check, with minimal hassle.
• Fast casual: There are a lot of nifty “fast casual” places (kind of like Chipotle) that we don’t have in the US. I ate at Nando’s (chicken place w/ lots of sauces) and Pret (kind of like Au Bon Pain) and they were both pretty good. You can get a meal for like 5-7 pounds, which is less than $10, so not too pricey. In a city not noted for its cuisine, I didn’t feel too bad eating at a chain.

Tagged: travelcontentlondon

2nd January 2010

Post with 6 notes

2009 in Music

When I headed off to college, I stopped listening to new music. Whatever the gene that makes old people listen to oldies - it had turned on, and I’d resigned myself to spending the rest of my life listening to Radiohead and The Postal Service. That changed this year. My iTunes library doubled in size (it just broke 10,000 songs). I co-wrote a (short-lived) music blog (more on that at the end of this post). And now, I’m even (belatedly) throwing my hat into the end of year list crowd.

I made a playlist on lala to accompany this list with a song from every band I mention. If you read at about 3 words per minute, the playlist will sync to the post, a la Dark Side of the Rainbow. You might see it embedded below, or if you’re reading this on the dashboard - just go here. (more on lala, below).

Albums

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
   Abstract and accessible. Overhyped + all that, but still a fucking amazing album.

2. The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa
   I’m really, really hooked on the indie meets Africa sound. Check out their fantastic mixtape if you haven’t already.

3. The Low Anthem - Oh My God Charlie Darwin
   The most beautiful album I heard all year (and a “Human Evolutionary Biology” reference, to boot!)

Honorable Mentions

• Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
• The xx - xx
• Passion Pit - Manners
• jj - n°2
• The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - s/t
• Discovery - LP
• Major Lazer - Guns Don’t Kill People Lazers Do

Songs

1. Coeur de Pirate - Ensemble
   I first heard this song in this youtube video, and quickly became obsessed with the tattoed, dyed-blond, French-Canadian who sings it.

2. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home
   “Girl, I’ve never loved one like you”

3. Girls - Lust for Life
   Better than Drake’s creepy, spoken word “Lust for Life”? Of course. Better than Iggy Pop’s track that opens Trainspotting? Debatable.

Honorable mentions

• Knatterjak - Time to Pretend (MGMT cover) (mp3)
• Biggie vs. Miley - Party & Bullshit in the USA (Hathbanger mix)
• Kid Cudi (feat MGMT & Ratatat) - Pursuit of Happiness
• Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (passion pit remix) (mp3)
• Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
• Tugboat - Remix Medley #1 (mp3
• The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Architecture in Helsinki remix)

Old songs I fell in love with in 2009

• Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy
• Knife - Heartbeats
• Daniel Lanois - Sonho Dourado
• Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
• Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
• Infinite Number of Sounds - Radio Whales
• Ratatat - Wildcat (and pretty much everything else…)

Genres I Unexpectedly Loved

1. Folk
   The Low Anthem, Swell Season & Edward Sharpe have dominated my car’s CD player this year.

2. Lo-fi
   Wavves, Girls, Neon Indian: all great, all made me want to listen to Daydream Nation on repeat.

3. Mixtape Rap
   Is this a genre? That might be a stretch, but I listened to mixtapes by Drake/Kid Cudi/Wale/Lil Wayne far more than any hip hop album this year (favorite non-mixtape hip hop: Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt III).

Favorite Concerts

1. Monolith Festival - Day 1
   The day was all-around ridiculous (meeting Caitlin Rose, observing the spectacle that is Of Montreal, M. Ward, Pains of Being Pure at Heart…).The night ended with all of us on stage for Girl Talk just going crazy. Highlights were a girl asking me if she could have some of the pills I was on (sorry, girl, but pure rock&roll joy don’t come from a pill), and some jailbait hitting on Gillis mercilessly while he did his whole laptop thing.

2. Ratatat @ Yardfest
   Fun? At Yardfest? Unbelievable!

3. Ladytron, The Faint, Telepathe
   I was not wearing enough eye makeup to be in attendance.

Favorite music web sites

1. lala.com
   It’s iTunes in the cloud (and since lala was just bought by Apple, it could very well be the cloud version of iTunes soon!). There’s an uploader to make your iTunes library portable, and you get a free stream of any song they have. Unlimited streams are cheap (10 cents, and you get a bunch for free), and mp3s are comparable in price to the iTunes Music Store + Amazon.

2. Pitchfork
   Half of the music they love is unlistenably avant-garde (i.e. Dirty Projectors). The other half is my list above. For what it’s worth, they also love lala.

3. Hype Machine
   On the one hand, it’s all buzz band remixes, “classic” indie tracks (i.e. Postal Service), and pop rap. On the other hand, I love that shit.

Honorable Mention

• Gorilla vs. Bear - Pitchfork with polaroids
• Pretty Much Amazing - The writing is pretty atrocious, but worth keeping on the RSS reader for the mp3s.
• Aurgasm - For finding foreign singers with beautiful voices, and such.

Most disappointing sophomore albums

1. Conor Oberst - Outer South
   Made me miss Bright Eyes.

2. The Boy Least Likely To - The Law of the Playground
   Not as innocent & twee the second time around.

3. Vampire Weekend - Cousins
   Okay, so it isn’t out yet. And it hasn’t leaked (surprising!). And “Horchata” is pretty good. But I didn’t really have a third “sophomore slump” and I assume no one has actually read this far.

Songpong posts

1. Flosstradamus - Overnight Star
   This post topped Carl Sagan’s list as well.

2. Savage Garden - I Want You (acoustic)
   Nostalgia. A hro reference. And a pretty nifty version of a classic song.

3. Jets to Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary
   Comments from people after I posted this made me realize I’m not the only person in the world who likes Jets to Brazil. Plus, a Widener library reference.

Tagged: animal collectivebest of 2009low anthemmusicthe very bestcontent

5th September 2009

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Things to do in Rome

Along the lines of my montreal post, a non-expert’s opinion on things you should do if you’re visiting Rome.

1. Go to the vatican. It’s sorta pricey and very busy, but the art + architecture is amazing.
2. Throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain. Touristy, cheesy, but adorable.
3. Pick up a picnic lunch at GiNa and walk up the Spanish Steps to eat it at the Villa Borghese.
4. Get really nerdy about Roman History and see the Forum, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and the Ara Pacis… (or not… they’re awesome if you love the history, but not at all thrilling if you couldn’t care less about Augustus + company).
5. Walk a bit south to Trastavere for a dinner. It’s nice and neighborhoody - a great escape from the tourist traps in the city, and super cheap.
6. Eat lots of gelato!!!

Tagged: travelRomecontent

30th August 2009

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Get me some text link advertising and some waffle fries… FO FREE?

Google just offered me $100 of free advertising. It’s clearly an incredible opportunity for me to expand the reach of 2arrs2ells… but what search terms should I bid on?

Some of the search terms that have already sent me traffic include:

• “paul rudd is a douchebag”
• who mails a bobcat
• diana needs
• fuckyeahlevarburtonº
• coullotesª
• “moonlit wang”

All suggestions appreciated and almost certainly acted upon.

º Now a reality.
ª A rather embarrassing misspelling, considering the word is spelled correctly on the sign in the picture.

Tagged: metacontentgoogle